


Hope Deferred

by Lavendermagik



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s06e15 The French Mistake, F/M, POV Second Person, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-27 10:36:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18737329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lavendermagik/pseuds/Lavendermagik
Summary: Dean wasn't expecting anything useful to come from this unexpected trip to bizzaro world, but then he saw you.





	Hope Deferred

Angels were dicks, and if the alternative hadn’t been Satan himself, Dean might have given the award for Biggest Douchebag to Balthazar. Who throws you into an alternate universe without any warning? A universe where your entire life is a TV show that’s not even popular? A universe where his brother wasn’t his brother and married a demon who wasn’t a demon, and the two raised alpacas in the back of their ridiculous mansion?

There were too many people running around this joint. All he wanted was a few minutes alone to breathe and try to figure out how to get home. But every few seconds someone new came up to him, spouting a bunch of words he didn’t recognize and trying to put more makeup on him. It was in the midst of brushing off another woman with a sponge in her hand that he saw someone he'd never expected to see again.

He actually froze in the middle of his sentence, hand up to block her continued attempts to get at his face. He was staring, but you hadn’t even noticed him yet. Then his feet were moving, carrying him towards your figure as you bent over the packet of paper in another man’s hands. He called your name three times before you finally looked up, and an easy smile slid onto your face.

You said one last thing to the other man before stepping into his space. “Hey, what’s up?”

“You’re alive.” His voice sounded breathless, even to his own ears, but all you did was roll your eyes in a heart-wrenchingly familiar fashion.

“I joined the writing staff – I didn’t die. I’m literally one room away from you most of the time. Don’t be so dramatic.”

“But after Sam jumped into the cage, you were just gone. We thought…”

“Yeah, I guess my character didn’t get much closure. I think the show wanted to leave it open for me to come back, but the fans don’t really miss me all that much.” Your expression changed from thoughtful to teasing. “I think they didn’t appreciate me ruining all the shots of you and Jared with my presence.”

Right, of course. This wasn't the real you any more than Sam's wife was the real Ruby or that guy always buried in his cell phone was the real Cas. You were an actor, had played the part and then left her behind like she didn't matter. But then… what you, this not-you, said about not getting closure…

“Does that mean… you could still be alive?” Dean saw your eyebrows rise and tried to switch tracks. “I mean in the show. Your, uh, character – she might not be dead?”

He tried not to look too hopeful. He tried not to feel too hopeful.

“I guess so. We’ve never said canonically whether she died in the battle with Lucifer or not. But,” you continued before he’d begun to process all the implications of this information, “I wouldn’t start planning a welcome home party. Like I said, the fans aren’t interested in seeing me back, and the studio isn’t go to waste money when you two can get along just fine without me.”

“That’s not true!” He could see your eyebrows climbing again, but he couldn’t bring himself to temper his words. “You’re the _only_ reason we’ve made it as far as we have. You’re the glue that holds us together when everything starts flying apart.”

Dean had picked you up in New Orleans right before his dad disappeared. You'd saved his skin when you'd driven the Impala straight into that week's monster. Sure, he'd been pissed initially at your treatment of Baby, but he couldn't argue with the results, so when you'd asked to come along he'd found himself a new copilot on the trip retrieve Sam. Also, you had an unexplainable ability to see how a person had or would die just by touching them, which came in handy. You'd been with them ever since. At least until Lucifer had seemingly zapped you from existence.

“Jensen-”

“Man, that’s a stupid name.”

“What?”

“No, look, you’re wrong. We need you. I need you.”

The silence stretched just past comfortable when that fond smile flashed back in. “I don’t think I tell you nearly enough how much your support means to me. You’re seriously my biggest fan, and that’s pretty incredible considering who you are. But I promise I’m not going anywhere – I’m just working behind the scenes now, and I’m surprisingly good at it. It was my idea for you to say ‘pudding’ instead of Jared back in season five, remember?”

“What? No, that’s not-”

“Besides, I think my special ability made your jobs too easy. The excuse that you didn’t want all those deaths in my head only works so many times, especially when knowing what killed a person would have wrapped the case up immediately.”

It wasn’t an excuse. Every time you touched people you would experience their deaths first hand. You'd come out of it gasping and shaking and sometimes sobbing, and he couldn’t even hold you in the aftermath. The mental strain of that kind of thing would have worn on anyone, especially considering the particular flavor of death you regularly encountered, and you'd become more and more removed with each case. He and Sam tried to limit your power usage, but when the situation felt dire enough, there you’d be, whipping off your gloves and feeling yourself die again. Everything had only gotten worse with all the angel and demon crap.

“Mr. Ackles, we need you on set.” A petite woman in a headset and thick framed glasses called out, looking a little nervous at the thought of interrupting.

“That’s your cue.” You punched him gently on the shoulder, and he found it jarring how easily you touched him in this world. “Break a leg. Not literally though. We have a hard enough time writing in your extracurricular injuries as it is.”

You turned to walk away, and he wanted so badly to stop you, to ask you more questions, to hug you until he was sure you actually existed. But then, this wasn’t you, not really, not the you that was his.

“Wait,” he called out anyway. Two steps brought him back within touching distance. “If you, your character, whatever, was still alive, what happened? Where are you?”

“Hmm… I think the writers had been throwing around an idea that I was being held captive by Raphael. It was something about me actually being Wisdom, like from the book of Proverbs. It says something about being there when the LORD laid the earth's foundations and other very complimentary stuff that would make me sound very important. When God left and everyone started fighting, Gabriel went into hiding and put me into some kind of extradimensional pocket for my own safety. But when you and Sam were born, my soul or essence or something broke out and was born as a human in preparation for the big endgame battle with Michael and Lucifer. I know,” you added around a laugh, “it’s ridiculous. I think we finally found something that’s actually too convoluted for our show.”

“Yeah, that’s, uh… that’s crazy…” Crazy enough that it might be true. Gabriel had been oddly protective of you, even warning them in his creepy porn DVD to keep you away from Lucifer. Obviously, they should have listened. “Hey, one more thing. You know how there was always this, uh, thing between you, me, and Sam?”

“The UST?” Your eyes narrowed when he just stared blankly back at you. “Unresolved sexual tension? Dude, did you forget your Wheaties this morning or something?”

“Right, yeah, UST. Anyway, I was just wondering… who would you have gone with? You know, in the show?”

“Oh, please, like it would have ever happened with either of you. Aside from my obvious physical restrictions which would make any kind of romantic relationship next to impossible, Dean and Sam cannot have long-term girlfriends – you would crush fangirl dreams everywhere. Besides, Dean doesn’t do serious attachments. Do you really think he would throw that out the window just for me?”

“Yeah,” Dean answered after a beat, smiling for the first time since he’d caught sight of you. “Yeah, I think he would.”

You looked taken aback, but before you could reply the woman in the headset piped up again. “Mr. Ackles?”

“Okay, Casanova, go shoot your scene. We’ll catch up later. You can tell me all about how you and Jared made up.”

This time he didn’t bother stopping you. You weren't you, after all, but you had given him the hope that the real you was still alive - the hostage of a psychotic, tyrannical angel, but alive and waiting for him to find you. This might be a long shot, but he'd thrown in more for less.

“Mr. Ackles?” Oh yes, the page or whatever she was called. Knowing what he now knew, he found he had even less patience with this funhouse-mirror world than before. That probably put him well into the negatives at this point.

“Dude, they’re saying we have to go to set, and I don’t-” Sam’s rambling cut off abruptly when Dean approached. Whatever his face was doing must have been worrisome. “You okay?”

He'd just seen the doppelganger of a dead woman he might very well have been in love with if he’d ever let himself think about it. And now he knew you might not be dead at all, and that made him the selfish bastard who never tried to find you. He was no better than the ‘fans' who let you disappear and didn’t even care. In summation, this left him confused and hopeful and guilty and more frustrated than ever with angels and interdimensional travel. Was he okay?

“No, not really. I’ll tell you one thing though: when we get back I’ve got some questions for our favorite race of winged dicks.”


End file.
